es. She met
his eyes frankly but he turned away, for he remembered what the seeress
had told him. So he went about his work and when he looked again his
lady of the sycamores had fled.

CHAPTER XII

STEEL ON STEEL

The stifling summer heat fetched up wind from the south and thundercaps
crowned the high peaks; then the rain came slashing and struck up the
dust before it lifted and went scurrying away. The lizards gasped for
breath, Drusilla ceased to sing, all Pinal seemed to palpitate with
heat; but through heat and rain one song kept on--Denver's song of steel
on steel. In the cool of his tunnel he drove up-holes and down, slugging
manfully away until his round of holes was done and then shooting away
the face. As the sun sank low he sat on the dump, sorting and sacking
the best of his ore; and one evening as he worked Drusilla came by,
walking slowly as if in deep thought.

He was down on his knees, a single-jack in his right hand a pile of
quartzite at his left, and as she came to the forks he went on cracking
rocks without so much as a stare. She glanced at him furtively, looked
back towards the town, then turned off and came up his trail.

"Good evening," she began and as he nodded silently she seemed at a loss
for words. "--I just wanted to ask you," she burst out hurriedly, "if
you'd be willing to sell back the mine? I brought up the money with me."

She drew out the sweaty roll of bills which he had paid to her father
and as Denver looked up she held it out to him, then clutched it
convulsively back.

"I don't mean," she explained, "that you have to take it. But I thought
perhaps--oh, is it very rich? I'm sorry I let him sell it."

"Why, no," answered Denver with his slow, honest smile, while his heart
beat like a trip-hammer in his breast, "it isn't so awful rich. But I
bought it, you know--well, I was sent here!"

"What, by Murray?" she cried aghast, "did he send you in to buy it?"

"Don't you think it!" returned Denver. "I'm working for myself
and--well, I don't want to sell."

"No, but listen," she pleaded, her eyes beginning to fill, "I--I made a
great mistake. This was father's best claim, he shouldn't have sold it;
and so--won't you sell it back?"

She smiled, and Denver reached out blindly to accept the money, but at a
thought he drew back his hand.

"No!" he said, "I was sent, you know--a fortune-teller told me to dig
here."

"Oh, did he?" she exclaimed in great disappointment.